Senior skaters registered to compete include Japan's Takahiko Kozuka ('06 Jr. World men's champ) and Yukari Nakano, Parker Pennington, Michael Peters, Megan Oster, Megan Hyatt and Canada's Lesley Hawker, Erin Scherrer and Ken Rose. In Junior Men, Jonathan Cassar has a new FS to an interesting cut of "Concierto de Aranjuez" choreographed by David Wilson that was one of the highlights for me at the Liberty competition last week -- watch for his *deep* inside edge spread eagle!

It's a bit of a haul for me to get to Detroit but I would have loved to see those Pairs. very close results. I think Putnam and Wirtz would have won if they had skated. There are a lot of interesting 2nd tier skaters listed too for singles which I would so much like to see.

Jonathan Cassar - Is he Canadian? A choreographed program by David Wilson to Aranjuez is worth a trip to Bloomfield Hills.

Jonathan Cassar - Is he Canadian? A choreographed program by David Wilson to Aranjuez is worth a trip to Bloomfield Hills.

Cassar placed 8th in junior men at 2006 US Nationals and had some of the best spins (especially camel), choreography and musical interpretation in the field, I thought. His last year's SP was choreographed by Igor Shpilband, and I was glad to see him keep it this season. Cassar is still working on the harder triples, but has a lot of dance experience (both off and on ice) and it shows in his skating.

Yes, yes. Now I remember. I have notes on him from last year's Nats as being a very musical skater. Musical skaters, imo, have problems with the elements because they don't prepare for the elements before they actually do any. they are too intense on the music.

P.S. Just heard that Jonathan Cassar won the Junior Men's free skate today in a tightly contested event with Douglas Razzano. Both guys also competed at Liberty last week, so kudos to both of them for doing back-to-back competitions!

Check out Tommy Steenberg (now a Senio). Has he gained any weight? Extremely a musical skater but what does he need to take his place among Lysacek, Weir Savoie?

I was impressed with Tommy Steenberg at Nats too. We saw some of his practices as well. I agree he needs a little extra something to get right up there with the top ranked men at Nats, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it either.

Check out Tommy Steenberg (now a Senio). ... Extremely a musical skater but what does he need to take his place among Lysacek, Weir Savoie?

BTW, Steenberg wasn't at Skate Detroit but he is working on putting a triple axel in his programs this year (he fell on his 3axel attempt in the Senior Men's SP at Liberty and popped it in the FS). I also think he interprets his music well even though his new SP is pretty much all drums and percussion (it says "Drumline" in his USFS bio) and is quite a departure for him! Since he's 17 (18 in November), he'll be back on the JGP this fall and is scheduled for the fourth one in Miercurea Ciuc, Romania, Sept. 21-24.